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Arcana Coelestia #8858

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8858. A person's whole character is determined by the nature of whatever dominates his life; this is what marks him off from others. His heaven is formed in accordance with it if he is good, or his hell if he is bad. For it constitutes his true will and so the true being of his life, which is unchangeable after death. From all this one may see what the life is like in a person who has been regenerated, and what it is like in one who has not been regenerated.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #9286

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9286. 'Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year' means enduring worship of the Lord and thanksgiving on account of deliverance from damnation. This is clear from the meaning of 'keeping a feast' or 'holding a feast' as worshipping the Lord with gladness of mind on account of deliverance from damnation, dealt with in 7093; and from the meaning of 'three times in the year' as a state complete right to its end, for 'three' means complete from the beginning to the end, 2788, 4495, 7715, 9198, and 'year' a whole period, 2906, 7839, 8070. At this point therefore complete and whole deliverance is meant; for 'the feast of unleavened bread' means purification from falsities, 'the feast of harvest' means the planting of truth in good, and 'the feast of ingathering' means the implanting of good from there. Thus complete deliverance from damnation is meant by these feasts; for when a person has been purified from falsities, and after this has been brought by means of truths into good, and is at length governed by good, he is in heaven with the Lord and has accordingly undergone complete deliverance.

[2] The consecutive stages of deliverance from damnation are like the consecutive stages of regeneration; for regeneration is deliverance by the Lord from hell and being led by Him into heaven. For a person who is being regenerated is first purified from falsities, after that the truths of faith he knows are planted in the good of charity, and finally that good itself is implanted in him. When all this has been done the person has been regenerated and he is then in heaven with the Lord. Therefore the three feasts in the year also meant worship of the Lord and thanksgiving on account of regeneration. Because these feasts were established on account of the everlasting remembrance of those things, the worship and thanksgiving are called enduring; for the most important things in worship should endure forever. The things which should endure forever are those which have been inscribed not only on the memory but also on the actual life that is led. When this is so they are said to reign universally with a person, see 5949, 6159, 6571, 8853-8858, 8865.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Arcana Coelestia #10655

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10655. 'You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread' means worship of the Lord and thanksgiving on account of deliverance from evil and from the falsities of evil. This is clear from the meaning of 'the feast' as worship and thanksgiving, dealt with in 7093, 9286, 9287; and from the meaning of 'unleavened bread' as things which have been purified from evil and from the falsities of evil, dealt with in 9992. Consequently 'the feast of unleavened bread' means worship and thanksgiving on account of deliverance from evil and from the falsities of evil. The fact that this was the meaning of that feast, see 9286-9292.

[2] As regards this feast, it should be recognized that the glorification of the Lord's Human, and so the remembrance of this and thanksgiving on account of it, is its proper meaning. The glorification of His Human and the subduing of the hells by the Lord have given mankind deliverance from evils and salvation. For the Lord glorified His Human by means of conflicts against the hells and the victories He always gained over them in those conflicts, the final conflict and victory being that on the Cross, when therefore He fully glorified Himself, as is also His own teaching in John,

After Judas went out Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him at once. John 13:31-32.

In the same gospel,

Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You. Now, Father, glorify Me in Your Own Self with the glory which I had with You before the world was. John 17:1, 5.

And in Luke,

Ought not the Christ to have suffered this and to enter into His glory? Luke 24:26.

'Glorifying the Son of Man' means the making Divine of the Human. All these things declared by the Lord had regard, it is self-evident, to His passion on the Cross.

[3] Through that final conflict, which was the passion of the Cross, He completely subdued the hells. This too is the Lord's teaching in John,

Jesus said, The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Now My soul is troubled. And He said, Father, glorify Your name. And a voice came from heaven, [saying,] I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. And Jesus said, Now is the judgement of this world, now will the prince of this world be cast outdoors. I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself. This He said, indicating the kind of death He was about to die. John 12:23, 27-28, 31-33.

Hell as a whole is what the term 'the prince of this world' or the devil refers to. From these verses it is evident that by the passion of the Cross the Lord not only overcame and subdued the hells but also completely glorified His Human. From this comes salvation to the human race, for which reason also the Lord came into the world, as He also teaches in John 12:27. It was for the sake of the remembrance of this that the feast of unleavened bread or the Passover was primarily established; and it was why He rose again at that feast.

[4] The reason why on account of deliverance from evil and from the falsities of evil is also meant is that all deliverance from evil comes about through the subduing of the hells by the Lord and through the glorification of His Human; without these there is no deliverance. For a person is ruled by the Lord by means of spirits from hell and angels from heaven. Unless therefore the hells had been altogether subdued, and unless the Lord's Human had been altogether united to the Divine Himself, and had thereby also been made Divine, no one could have possibly been delivered from hell and been saved; for the hells would have always prevailed, because the human being has become such that left to himself his thought consists of nothing other than that which belongs to hell. From this it is evident why it is that the same feast means worship and thanksgiving on account of deliverance from evil and from the falsities of evil.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.